This application is generally directed to a shared hardware resource and, more particularly, to techniques for monitoring a shared hardware resource.
In a server with virtualization technology, like IBM System z™ servers, several (logical) partitions share common resources, e.g., the IBM Crypto Express Adapter™ which can act as a multi domain hardware security module. The use of a shared resource by several partitions might give rise to an undesirable information flow if the resource is involved in the processing of sensitive data, as is the case for cryptographic adapters. In particular, sensitive information may leak if performance data about the common resource is measured and released for optimization and accounting purposes. For example, there is a risk that a partition can use the released global performance measurement data together with its measurements of the partition itself to determine the usage profile of another partition, thus violating the privacy of the partition. Methods from database privacy can be applied to this problem in a non-trivial way. In known solutions, data is aggregated extensively, but this offers no reliable guarantees. Strongly aggregated data, e.g., over long time intervals, have low utility for optimization purposes and offer no differential privacy.